Starring Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard, Abbie Cornish, Freddie Highmore, Tom Hollander. 118 mins. Having previously delivered landmark science fiction, resurrected the sword and scandals epic and flung us into the middle of the civil war in Mogadishu, Sir Ridley Scott’s now gives us 8pm Channel 4 most weekday nights. It’s Relocation Relocation with Russell Crowe instead of Phil and Kirsty, an intoxicating mix of all the contemporary porns: property, lifestyle and cookery. The film is an adaptation Peter Mayle’s novel about a ruthless stock market trader Max (Crowe) who inherits a chateau and vineyard in Provence when his Uncle Henry (Finney) dies. He hasn’t been back there since he spent some long summers there as a young boy (played in flashbacks by preternaturally talented teenager Highmore) and flies over looking to sell up as quickly as possible but once there the wine, the landscape, the fresh air and a French woman slowly act to turn his head. Scott has assembled a marvellous cast but it is Crowe that dominates the posters and Crowe that dominates the film. If you’ve never quite understood what the big deal is about Crowe you should see him in this. He’s cast against type here but he has such a phenomenal screen presence that he triumphs in a role that ought to have buried him. The role of Max is a very odd fit for Crowe but that awkwardness makes him intriguing and that’s true of the film as a whole. Neither Crowe nor Scott seems to have much aptitude for this kind of light comedy but their let’s-have-a-bash enthusiasm is infectious This is quite the oddest movie Scott has ever made. You go in not quite believing that you’re about to see the Gladiator pair doing A Year in Provence and that feeling of mouth agape disbelief stays for the entire movie. There are scenes in A Good Year that I’d never have believed I’d ever see in a Ridley Scott movie and I loved that about it. If this was a Richard Curtis film starring Hugh Grant it would be much slicker, much smoother and totally negligible. A Good Year isn’t in truth a particularly good film but it’s very endearing. It has a nice, putting your feet up air to it. After working on all those epic productions both Scott and Crowe are doing one just for the hell of it and they’re having a blast.